Global warming causes Antarctica to reach record high temperature

Global warming has been attributed to greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to Earth’s greenhouse effect. Consequences of the rising temperature in Antarctica include rising sea levels and devastating circumstances for endangered wildlife.

On Feb. 6, Antarctica reached a record-breaking temperature of 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit, 2.4 degrees higher than the highest recording in 2015, according to Argentina’s National Meteorological Service.

Maureen Raymo, an earth and environmental science research professor at Columbia University, told the New York Times that “This is the foreshadowing of what is to come. It’s exactly in line of what we’ve been seeing for decades.”

Julia Curry, the president of Chapman’s mission environment club, agreed with Raymo that the record high temperature is foreshadowing what may occur in the future.

“Antarctica is one of the quickest places to warm up, and we are seeing a lot of issues with that just in general,” she said. “The change in air pressure, tropical storms and hurricanes show that we really need to start restoring our wetlands, which act like a natural sponge towards sea level rise and towards hurricanes. We need to start figuring out how we can mitigate this problem because the damage has already been done.”

Shahir Masri, lecturer in environmental science at Chapman, explained the possible direct causes of Antarctica’s record-breaking heat, but also noted that it fits into the picture of global temperatures rising. “There’s something called adiabatic forming that happens when you have winds descend a mountainous slope, and that’s partially what happened here in the Antarctic,” he said. “We had certain wind patterns known as foehn winds. They’re somewhat akin to Santa Ana winds that we experience out here where we get those high desert air masses dropping down from the high desert into lower altitudes, and you get an expansion of air and associated warmings.”

Tom Piechota, professor of Environmental Science added that it’s important to be aware of changes in the Antarctic ice sheets and the potential effect they have on sea level rise as they hold a massive amount of water.

“What models have predicted over the long term, is that it could have a large changing in the ice cover from Antarctica and the British Antarctic Survey has predicted you can have up to 1.4 meters of sea level rise, and that’s a lot of sea level rise, because of this massive ice sheet that is Antarctica,” he said. “It’s certainly something people want to monitor and be aware of. It’s not something that happens right away but it’s certainly something that over time it can have a significant impact.”

In mission environment discussions, Curry focuses on inspiring younger generations to make changes before it’s too late.

“We are the first generation that is impacted by these types of changes and the last generation that can really do something to mitigate it,” she said. “We do talk about how this is going to impact how we vote and how we live our lives, and trying to prepare for really stark changes that are going to be happening within the next 10, 20, 30 years and what the world will actually start to look like.”

But, Masri stressed that this news doesn’t mean we are too late. In his book, “Beyond Debate: Answers to 50 Misconceptions on Climate Change,” Masri talks about the three pillars of change that people can focus on in terms of fighting climate change: bringing climate change into daily conversation, civic engagement and lifestyle changes.

“I definitely don’t think it’s too far gone,” Masri said. “The trajectories moving forward are still vastly different whether we go down the business as usual path and emit greenhouse gases indiscriminately or if we go down the more prudent path and really get our act together, transform the energy sector, think carefully about releasing greenhouse gasses and reduce our emissions.”